


The Winebearer

by osprey_archer



Category: Classical Greece and Rome History & Literature RPF
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-24
Updated: 2012-12-24
Packaged: 2017-11-22 06:58:50
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,659
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/607090
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/osprey_archer/pseuds/osprey_archer
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Julius Caesar, emissary from Rome, brings wine to Nicomedes of Bithynia. In spaaaaaaaace!</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Winebearer

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Sineala](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sineala/gifts).
  * Translation into 中文 available: [司酒者](https://archiveofourown.org/works/665491) by [styx](https://archiveofourown.org/users/styx/pseuds/styx)



When the security footage from the front gate wavered onto the comscreen, Nicomedes knocked his coffee onto the console. He swore. He didn’t care about the console - Bithynia X manufactured them, he could get another by snapping his fingers - but nowadays the Pontic fleet deterred even the greediest smugglers from bringing coffee or chocolate or wine to Bithynia.

Julius Caesar, emissary from Rome, it had not deterred. Nicomedes had mentioned that he missed wine, and Caesar had jumped into his fighter and flown to get some - at Pontus, the only planet close enough for his fighter to reach. 

Pontus, which was at war with Rome. In a spacecraft marked with the Roman eagle. It would have gone badly indeed for Bithynia X, if Pontus had caught a Roman emissary sent to buy Bithynia’s famous spy equipment.

“Idiot,” Nicomedes snapped, though of course Caesar couldn’t hear him. 

“Shall I let him in, sir?” Zara, his chief security officer, asked. 

Nicomedes leaned back in his chair. “Not yet,” he said. Let the idiot wait a bit in the whistling sand. Nicomedes had waited two days, wondering if Caesar had gotten himself captured yet.

Nicomedes watched. Caesar waited, his bearing military: he hardly swayed, despite the wind whipping Bithynia’s famous fine sand in misty swirls around him. Most visitors to Bithynia found the blue-green planetshine from the gas giant Bithynia X orbited unnerving; even jaded smugglers shivered when the sand screeched, banshee-like, against the sheer glass cliffs, as it did today. 

And most smugglers did not crash their ships three clicks distant from Nicomedes’ compound, as Caesar had on his return. Satellite footage of the wreck - Nicomedes glanced over at that screen - showed a Pontic harpoon in the fighter’s wing. 

“I’m amazed he landed it,” Zara commented - blandly enough, but Nicomedes knew she was managing him: directing him to note the pilot’s skill because she knew he would admire it. 

Zara was a good security officer because she had a knack for managing Nicomedes in the direction he wanted to go. 

Even in the blue planetshine, Caesar was a handsome man: strong brows, stronger nose. Lips chapped from the trek. Despite his wind-burned face and crash-rumpled pilot whites, he wore the same arrogant calm as when he first arrived aboard diplomatic cruiser: his scraped chin lifted arrogantly, one hand draped on the droid beside him. 

The droid’s dome slid open. Caesar took out a wine bottle, and lifted it as if he saw Nicomedes through the security camera, and was toasting him. 

“Reckless idiot,” Nicomedes said again, anger tinctured with admiration. He hit the button shutting off the camera feed and swung his chair around, pressing his hands to his thighs. He took a deep breath, and swung to his feet. His robes swirled around him. 

“Zara,” he said, and she clicked her polished boots. He had promoted her for those boots: anyone who could keep boots shiny in Bithynia’s sands must be competent in all things, he had thought, and so he had found her to be. “Show the emissary to the Incandescent Room.”

“Sir,” she said, and saluted, and left. 

He would make Caesar wait a while before going to see him - not that it was likely to make any dent in that confidence. 

***

Incandescent lights were a luxury anywhere, let alone in a remote moon outpost. But Nicomedes liked the soft yellow light, like the sunlight of the old world that Nicomedes had never visited. 

Caesar probably had. His was one of the first families of the Roman Empire: they might even live on Earth. _Spoiled brat_ , Nicomedes thought, tolerantly. 

Caesar sat on one of the two low wine-red couches, his olive skin glowing in the golden light, pouring wine into the first of two slim-stemmed goblets on the coffee table. Real wood, that coffee table. Mahogany. Zara, bless her, had gotten the gold-rimmed goblets. Nicomedes thought the luxury would likely make Caesar feel at home. 

Caesar looked up when Nicomedes entered, but did not stand. He was handsome enough in a comscreen, but there was a magic in his presence: his confidence became a magnetic force, and Nicomedes wanted to touch him, to taste his skin, to possess that inborn arrogance. 

“That was stupid,” he said, instead. 

Caesar continued pouring. “I told you I could outmaneuver them,” he said, twisting the bottle to stop the flow. He caught the last few drips of wine on his finger and licked them off unselfconsciously. 

“And if you had been caught?” Nicomedes asked, sinking into the plush couch next to Caesar’s. “What would I tell Rome had happened to their emissary?”

A smirk touched Caesar’s lips. “That misfortune had finally caught up with me,” he suggested. “They would be happy enough to see my arrogance cast down.” 

“You shock me,” Nicomedes said drily. 

“Of course.” Caesar began to fill the second goblet, his lean muscled arm graceful with the movement. “Jackals live to cheer when lions fall.” 

Nicomedes snorted. Caesar smiled, catching the drips off the bottle lip again. He moved to lick them off, but Nicomedes caught his wrist, and licked the wine off Caesar’s fingertips. The faint sour taste of sweat undercut the wine. “Have a care, cub,” Nicomedes said, and let go of Caesar’s hand. 

Caesar leaned forward a little, his hands hanging between his knees. “Go on; try the wine,” he said. 

Nicomedes sipped the wine. “This is good,” he said, and raised his glass to Caesar, angling it for Caesar to drink. 

“I’m glad it pleases you,” said Caesar. He lowered his head, sipping from Nicomedes’ glass. A wince flickered across his face as the astringent wine touched his cracked lip. 

Nicomedes smiled. “Your recklessness is...” He waved his free hand slightly, admiring the wine swirling in the glass. “...appealing.” 

“The desires of Bithynia are the desires of Rome,” Caesar replied.

Nicomedes sipped his wine. Caesar angled his chin slightly upward, smiling. “Are they now?” Nicomedes asked, and held out the wineglass again. 

Caesar leaned forward, raising his hand to tilt the wineglass toward him. His fingers pressed against Nicomedes, and Nicomedes found he was holding his breath. “Yes,” Caesar said, and licked wine off his lips. 

“So that is what Rome wants,” Nicomedes said. “But I am interested in Caesar: what does Caesar want?”

“I _am_ Rome,” said Caesar, all hauteur in his tone. 

Nicomedes grabbed Caesar’s collar, pulling him forward to kiss him. The wineglass fell to the floor between them, and Nicomedes kicked it under the couch, dragging Caesar off the couch to his knees on the antique rug. Caesar’s windburned cheek was rough beneath Nicomedes’ hand, his chapped lips scratchy against Nicomedes’ mouth. 

Caesar parted his lips. His mouth was warm and tasted of wine. He tugged Nicomedes’ hand, trying to pull him to the rug. 

Nicomedes pulled back, panting. Caesar’s right hand remained in his; his left fisted on the front of Nicomedes’ robe. He was panting too, chapped lips parted, looking up on Nicomedes. On his knees: a good look for him. 

He started to get up. Nicomedes touched a hand to his shoulder, and he stopped at once, so still that he almost quivered with the tension. His cheeks flushed, and his eyes darkened; and it came to Nicomedes that Caesar was uncertain, and excited by the novelty of that uncertainty. 

“Well, go on, then,” Nicomedes said, pulling his robe open; and Caesar moved forward eagerly, unhooking the fastenings on Nicomedes’ loose trousers. He took Nicomedes’ cock in his mouth, sucking hard, no finesse - and then he ran his tongue up the base of it. Nicomedes’ hips bucked off the couch, and Caesar rolled with him, hands clawed on Nicomedes’ thighs. 

Nicomedes pressed his shin against Caesar’s cock. Caesar rutted against it, and groaned. The sound shot up Nicomedes’ spine so hard that he almost couldn’t breathe. But Caesar slid off his cock - Nicomedes swore - and clambered onto the couch, straddling Nicomedes. “Fuck me.”

“Does Rome speak?” Nicomedes gasped.

“Yes,” snarled Caesar, his hands clenched in Nicomedes’ robe. 

Zara - fuck, he would give her a raise - had secreted a vial of oil in the back of the couch. Nicomedes slicked his fingers and pressed them inside Caesar. 

Caesar pushed down, letting go of Nicomedes’ robe with one hand and undoing the frogs on his tunic, his fingers trembling with haste. Nicomedes pressed his free hand against the plane of Caesar’s stomach, running it down the thin line of hair below his navel, resting it just above his cock. Caesar tried to thrust into his hand, but Nicomedes pulled back. “So demanding,” he chided, teasing. 

Caesar leaned in and kissed Nicomedes instead, open-mouthed, his lips rough and his mouth warm and soft. He tasted of Nicomedes. Nicomedes twisted his hand in the hair at the base of Caesar’s skull, and when he tugged, Caesar nearly bit Nicomedes’ tongue. 

“Sorry,” Nicomedes mumbled into Caesar’s mouth.

“Do it again,” Caesar said. Nicomedes followed orders, pulling Caesar’s hair, and Caesar left Nicomedes’ mouth and bit his collarbone. Nicomedes bucked up against him. 

Caesar pulled back, panting again. He thrust himself down on Nicomedes’ cock. 

_Taking his pleasure_ , Nicomedes thought; and he pushed himself hard into Caesar, and came. 

The world went white for a moment. And then Caesar fell against Nicomedes, breathing hard into his shoulder. He bit Nicomedes lightly; and then pushed himself away, falling sideways on the couch. “Do we have an agreement, Bithynia?” he asked, blinking up at Nicomedes, lazy-eyed.. 

“Do we need one just yet?” Nicomedes asked, lying down beside him.. 

Caesar yawned, and settled his head against Nicomedes’ arm. He closed his eyes. Nicomedes wondered if he looked masterful even while he was asleep. “There’s no hurry,” Caesar said. 

Nicomedes snorted. “That’s not what your secret orders say,” he said. No reason to make bones about reading those orders, given that Caesar was here for spying gear. 

Caesar yawned again. “Orders,” he said. “I never bother reading them.”

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you (name redacted) for betaing!


End file.
